


Next time, hire a nanny

by TheArchaeologist



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Gore, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Protective Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Swearing, Uncle-Niece Relationship, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-02 19:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArchaeologist/pseuds/TheArchaeologist
Summary: While the rest of his family go out to Vanya’s concert for the evening, Five, still recovering from the remains of a lingering chest infection, agrees to watch Claire. He is fifty-nine, he can handle a little girl for the night.Everything goes fine.Until it very much doesn't.





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re sure you’ll be ok?”

Five fixes his sister with a look, ignoring the way his six-year-old niece tiredly hangs off his arm. “I’m sick, not invalid.” It is supposed to sound frustrated, but weeks of coughing from a chest infection that would not _fucking leave_ makes his voice croak hoarsely. He clears his throat, ploughing through to add, “Plus, she’s half asleep already, I think I can manage.”

“Am not.” Comes the quiet voice of Claire, every bit her mother. She should have gone to bed an hour ago, but she had been adamant at seeing Allison off considering they would not be back until way gone eleven.

Hence why Five was currently at the bottom of the staircase, half being hugged by Claire, half holding her up. Behind Allison, his siblings and Mom continue to get ready, talking among themselves. The only person missing is Pogo, but considering that he has taken a vacation elsewhere, it will just be Five and Claire in the house tonight.

His bad voice seems to make Allison faulter, and out of a habit that have all picked up recently, reaches to check his forehead for his temperature.

He bats her hand away. “I’m _fine_ , stop hovering.”

“Says the guy whose been hacking up his lungs for days!” Klaus comments unhelpfully, pulling on the smart coat Allison insisted he wore. In typical Klaus fashion, a line of pink sequins has been added along the lapels, hand-stitched, from what Five can tell.

“Yes, and I’m recovered.” Mostly. He is still coughing, especially at night, but he is physically fourteen, mentally fifty-nine, he can keep an eye on a little girl for a couple of hours. 

Surprisingly, it is Diego to comes to his rescue. “Leave the man alone. I think he can handle it.” He tugs at the tight collar of his suit, and Allison tuts, moving to correct his now sideways bowtie.

Unfortunately for everyone minus Allison, Vanya’s concert has an extremely smart dress code, much to their very verbal chagrin. Diego had been a nightmare to suit, because he had stubbornly hated everything on offer, and Luther took over ten shops to find something that would fit. It was a surprise to absolutely no one that Klaus had been easy to find something for, even if Allison had to rein him in occasionally.

It may be smart dress, but that does not mean he gets to wear a top hat.

As much as Five wanted to go and support his sister, coughing his way through her entire concert would barely go down well for both him and the rest of the audience. She was the one who even insisted he stay at home, saying that the cold night air would only make it worse and his sickness would regress. 

The only bright side was that he avoided the dreaded shopping trip to find a child-sized suit, and he got a nice, quiet house for the evening.

Pulling a face but relenting, Allison adjusts her handbag on her shoulder and squats in front of Claire. “Be good for Uncle Five, ok sweetie? I expect you to do everything he says.”

Claire just nods and hums, stumbling forward to give her Mom a tight if sleepy hug. Five is probably going to have to carry her to bed, if this goes on much longer.

He turns away to cough into the back of his hand just as Klaus announces, “Ben says we have ten minutes to leave or we’ll be late.”

With a bit of a sigh, Allison lets Claire go, sending one last look to Five as the others file out the door, Diego, ever the gentlemen, escorting Mom.

“If anything happens, ring the concern hall, alright?”

“Nothing will happen.” Five insists, his hands on Claire’s shoulders to steady her as she sways backwards into him. “I’m barely going to have to read to her.”

Claire makes a noise at that, and Allison smiles before heading towards the door. She offers a soft, “Goodnight!” in their direction as she closes it, and moments later the sounds of the family cars starting up can be heard.

As they fade away, Five pats Claire’s shoulder. “Come on then, bed.”

“Can’t we watch a movie?” His niece complains, willingly taking his offered hand and being led up the stairs towards Allison’s bedroom. They are still fixing up one of the spare rooms for her, so for now she is staying with her mother. “I want to watch a movie.”

“No.”

“Please Uncle Five?”

“No, Claire.” He guides them across the landing, passed Mom’s paintings. Once Claire’s is sorted, Mom will be the next to get her own space. “You’ll be asleep before I can even get the TV on.” He can feel his throat threatening to crack and clears it. “I’ve already promised to read you something, anyway.”

“But your voice is funny.”

“ _Your_ voice is funny.”

His answer is a deep yawn, and she sways again, putting more weight into their held hands. Without saying a word, Five scoops her up, giving her a moment to wrap her arms and legs around him before continuing.

Despite being fourteen, she really is getting heavy for him now.

“What do you want me to read to you?”

“One of the stories you always have.”

Five splutters a surprised laugh at that, which rapidly derails into harsh fit of coughing that brings back an all too familiar ache in his chest. It is a pain he has grown to know intimately these last few weeks, and it lingers even as he manages to get his breath under control. He feels Claire softly pat his back.

By the time the fit fades into something more manageable, Five is using his foot to shove open the door to the bedroom. 

His voice sounds rough as he sets Claire down and says, “They’re not _stories_.” Clearing his throat on more of an impulse than anything else, he explains, “They’re textbooks on math and physics.” 

Claire clambers into bed, pulling the sheets around her. Five tugs them down a bit so she does not accidentally suffocate herself.

“Like at school?”

“Yeah, like at school.” Grabbing the desk chair, he brings it over, sitting down and rubbing at his strained chest. If he keeps hacking at this rate his voice will vanish altogether, recovery be damned. “They’re too old for you, though. Pick one of your books instead.”

The act of putting her head down on the pillow has already made her eyes droop, and Claire paws at them adamantly. “Little…Little Red…” She breaks off with a yawn wide enough that Five is half convinced she will split her face in two.

He gets the gist and reaches across to her bag of ‘entertainment things’ that she brought with her, plucking out the book. It is an old, battered thing, the pages yellowing with age, and with a small scowl Five tries to think back to whether he ever saw Allison reading fairy tales as a child. He cannot say that he does, so perhaps this is from Patrick’s side of the family.

He opens the book to the first page. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl, and she lived on the edges of a deep, dark wood.”

It takes three pages for Claire to succumb to gravity and close her eyes, five for her breathing to even out, and then ten for Five to be sure she can no longer hear him. Closing the book, he sets it on the desk and stands, dimming the lights and leaving the door open a crack behind him. The lights in the hallway are on, and Claire already knows he will be in his room.

Five leaves his door open, just in case Claire calls for him, and settles back into his bed to read one of his books, lips smirking at Claire’s request for one of his _stories_. 

Dolores would have liked that, chuckling in that sweet way of hers. It was one of those things she would have brought up when Five was in a bad mood, making him lighten and more likely to relent to her logic on the situation. He had buttons, she knew this, and only by pressing them in the correct order could you get him to bend to another’s will.

An undetermined about of time passes, and Five cough settles as he relaxes, propped upright in bed with a mountain of pillows tucked up behind him.

It is because Five’s door is open that he hears it.

Footsteps, slowly walking along the floorboards upstairs.

Pogo is not meant to be back until next month and glancing at the clock tells Five that Vanya’s concert will be well and truly underway by now. Unless something went wrong, no one should be back yet, and even if they were, they would not be creeping around.

An unknown person is in the house.

An unknown person is in the house, and _Claire_ is here.

_Shit._

As silently as possible, Five climbs from his bed, setting down his book and flicking off his lights. He smothers his mouth to stifle a cough, inching towards his doorway to strain over the natural noises that come with old buildings to locate the source of the footsteps.

The person continues to sneak around upstairs.

And downstairs.

And on this floor.

Sucking in a breath on impulse and immediately regretting it as it aggravates his lungs, Five shrinks back into the darkness of his room, stuffing the urge to hack as deep into his chest as he can manage without it spluttering over like a bottle of pop bursting.

Several people are in the house. Perhaps more, if he is unlucky enough. It is possible that Five simply cannot hear them from here. 

He needs to get to Claire. He needs to get to Claire and to get her out. There is no time for fancy tricks tonight, for darting around and teasing his prey, not when he is her sole protector. Everything he does needs to be with the goal of keeping her safe and secure. 

They have the added disadvantage of Five still recovering from the chest infection. When he had been in the full throes of the sickness, jumping had been all but impossible, and even though he has recovered for the most part, jumping still does nothing to help his chest. It would alert the intruders to their presence more than anything else.

Which means he is going to have to walk to Allison’s room.

There is an anxiety in his veins, one Five has not felt for a long, _long_ time, and in response his cough rears its ugly head like a goddamn toddler who knows exactly when they should not throw a tantrum and does it anyway. 

Five chokes, desperately trying to keep it contained, his hands pressing against his chest.

The best course of action would be for them leave and get help, maybe use a payphone for the police and ring the concert hall. Five is not in the habit of letting others do work he is more than capable of sorting himself, but when needs must.

Before Five can do any of that, he needs to get to Claire.

Breathing deeply to try and expand his lungs, Five squeezes his eyes shut and forces his body to calm, relax, letting it sink into the ease of his old work.

The hallway of his bedroom is silent, and as stealthily as he can, Five slinks out.

Footsteps continue around the house.

Inching along, Five finds himself silently thanking Dad for a childhood filled with sneaking from bedroom to bedroom in fear of getting caught. Unintentionally, their father has taught them exactly where each creaky floorboard is, each bump, each hinge that could give their position away.

Downstairs, something breaks, and all feet instantly still, as if listening to see if Five would stir at the disturbance. Five stills as well, biting his tongue hard and resisting with everything he can not to cough.

Then, Claire screams.

All logic goes soaring out the window as Five jumps instantly, his chest jarring something painful as he lands at the bedside, instantly dodging back as a knife goes swooping over his head. The man, dressed completely in leather and wearing one of those ridiculous red gas masks, swings at him again, and Five uses the momentum to grab his arm and yank, overbalancing him enough that he can reach to snap his neck.

At the sound of a gun cocking, Five freezes, locking eyes with a crying Claire as she struggles in another person’s arms, held up against their middle with her feet dangling off the ground. The person has a gun pointed at her head.

If there is one thing Five hates most, it is hostage situations.

His jumping is quick, it is forever catching people off-guard, but it has never been quick enough to hit before a bullet goes off.

Dad had reiterated this weakness to Five enough times for him to know it.

“Put her down.” He rasps, nowhere near as threatening as he needs for this situation. “You’re here for me, right? I’ll comply, just put her down.”

“Uncle Five?” Claire sobs, wiggling. Her eyes are wide, tilting down towards the body at his feet. “I don’t-”

“It’s ok.” He smiles at her, and shit, he has never been the best at reassuring. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

As if just to annoy him, the person jabs the gun against her skull, making Claire flinch badly. Five holds out his hands, like that would somehow stop them, stepping a pace back in a show of submission. His cough makes his body jerk, but he never breaks eye contact with Claire, even if she does.

What he needs is a bit of leeway, just a little something that would give Five the three seconds he needs to jump. Three seconds, surely he can scrounge up three lousy seconds to save the life of his niece?

He just needs to _think._

“Look, I’m not doing anything, so put her down, yeah?” Five is begging and it sickens him, but Claire is not like his siblings, she does not know where to kick, what to punch, how to manipulate the situation to her will. If it was Diego, or Allison, or even Klaus, then Five would be nowhere near as panicked as he is. “I thought the Commission was done with us. We haven’t heard anything for months.”

Plus, begging gives the impression that he is desperate. True, Five _is_ , but making himself look weak and vulnerable, especially in this body, tends to make people lower their hackles. He coughs some more, purposely this time, though it does not take much prompting.

Unsurprisingly, he does not get an answer, these types of goons never do. Unlike the Temporal Assassins, they are not trained to be discrete, or to trail, or to hide in plain sight and strike with a deadly accuracy. Instead, they are taught to shoot and leave no survivors, to take down anyone and everything, and to _always_ achieve their goal. It is the reason they were so often sent to war zones, where bodies did not matter, and blood hangs in the air even of the good days.

Talking is getting him nowhere. Five needs a different approach, a different plan to-

Claire is too much like her mother.

Five sees her prepare a mere breath before she does it, but the bite on the hand holding her takes them all by surprise.

It is the excuse he needs.

The person jumps badly, the gun jerking, and before they can even consider pulling the trigger Five is there, directly behind them, and snapping the neck with a deafening crack.

Claire drops to the ground along with the body, landing on her knees and crawling away, crawling back, sobbing and stammering. Five follows her, trying to step between her and the body and hide her view of the corpse.

“Hey, hey, easy, it’s just me.” He breathes, voice scratchy and coughs building in his lungs. Five swallows, trying not to lose control. “Claire, it’s just me.”

Face crumpling, Claire lunches at him, burying into his middle as Five wraps his arms around her, squeezing her tightly. She sobs, and something within him breaks at her trembling, running his hand up and down her back as gently as possible. He keeps one eye on the door of the room.

“I want my Mom!” She wails, and Five hugs her closer.

“I know, I know, I’ll get you to your Mom, I promise.” Biting his lips and reluctantly prying her from him, Five squats low to meet her eyes, waiting until her full focus is on him. Her shoulders hitch from crying. “Claire, I need you to listen to me, ok? You need to do exactly as I say.”

“B-But-”

He squeezes her arms, not harshly, but enough to get her to _listen_. “No buts, no talking back, no nothing. You do exactly as I say, when I say it. I mean it, Claire. I’m going to get you out of this, ok? But to do that I need to know I can trust you.”

This is not like herding his siblings to stop the apocalypse. Claire is a _child_ , she lacks the knowledge and world experience to tell the difference between Five being a moody adult, and Five being serious because her life is in danger. He cannot risk her ignoring him, not now, not when they have an unknown number of people in the house who have orders to shoot to kill anyone they find.

The Commission kill children. He knows this. He was one of them. She was lucky she has survived this long, but Five suspects that was only to draw him out of the woodwork.

Then, miraculously, Claire nods.

It is as if he can breathe again. “Good girl.”

She blinks, and her gaze travels behind him towards the window. “Uncle Five?”

Turning, Five blanks at the sniper on the roof opposite, gun drawn.

Shoving Claire, he scrambles to push them out the way as bullets smash through the glass. Claire shrieks, and powerful impacts bang into the floor as he tugs her out the bedroom. Upstairs, footsteps run, an erratic heartbeat that draws louder and closer.

Grabbing her hand, Five hisses, “Claire, this way!”

When this is over, Five is going to spoil her rotten, because as he takes off in a run she races beside him, somehow keeping up despite the fact that she is still crying, still clinging to him, still deeply, deeply scared.

Five is wheezing now, making it hard to fully catch his breath, but at that moment he cannot give himself the time to care, because as they near the end of the corridor more noise comes from downstairs. 

Without a second thought Five turns them into an open doorway to a spare room, spinning them around so they are against the wall and scooping Claire up so her back pressed into his chest. One hand holds her, and the other goes over her mouth.

Five leans against her ear. “Be quiet.”

His shoulders jerk with silenced coughs, and he buries his head against her shoulder to suppress them, his thumb absently wiping at her wet cheek as she shivers.

Out in the corridor, the people have slowed back down to their creep, edging their way along. They are near, enough that Five finds himself readying his stance so he can drop Claire and defend if necessary.

She has already seen him kill twice tonight; he really does not want to mar her impression of him even more.

But he must keep her alive, and these idiots will not show them a lick of mercy. 

If he must put up with Claire hating him for the rest of his life, then so be it.

The people have somehow managed to miss them, and very slowly Five sets Claire down, but he holds one finger up to her lips and waits until she nods before moving his hand away. Very cautiously, he peers around the doorway, eyes narrowing at the goons gathered the other end, talking to each other through a sign language Five never learned while an assassin.

He worked alone, after all.

They cannot enter the corridor without being seen, so that leaves their only option to get out with the window. All the bedrooms have a linked fire escape, so if he could get them outside, they could quietly climb down and get onto the streets.

Ushering Claire cross the spare room, Five reaches up to unlock the latch.

Movement catches the very corner of his eye, and Five startles back, flinging out a hand to move Claire with him.

Outside, hidden in the shadows so the night-time crowd do not see them, multiple people sit and wait. A glint of a gun flashes in the moonlight, and not even a second later it is been drawn back into the dark.

There is no way out.

If the Commission are out here, then the rest of the house will be surrounded. While Five can jump, attempting to with another person is beyond unstable, even more so when he is already weakened. Space is fickle, less so than time but it is still there, and reining in those temperaments to bounce from one place to another is not an easy task, even for someone as experienced as Five. For Claire the jump would be a dizzying second, but for him it would be a manic minute of calculations, navigation, and deep-rooted energy.

He cannot afford to get tired right now, especially if he does not land where he intends. His shoulders already rise and fall dangerously heavy, and there is a sheen of sweat across his forehead.

If Five is going to stand any chance at getting Claire out unharmed, then he is going to need to thin the herd, so to speak, to cut away a hole in their perfectly formed net and slip through, all while being unobvious in his plan.

He cannot do that with Claire at his hip.

Squeezing her hand, Five moves them back into the room, carefully manoeuvring her towards the wardrobe sat dusty to one side and very slowly opening the doors. They creek from disuse, but a glance towards the corridor shows that they have yet to be noticed. Inside is empty, thank God for small mercies.

Five squats in front of Claire again, whispering, “I need you to be really brave for me, alright?”

“Brave?”

“I need you to hide in here.” He points towards the open wardrobe. “It will be dark, it will be scary, but I _promise_ I’m doing this for a good reason.” The way her messy face twists in distress hurts. “I’m going to get you out of here Claire, but to do that, I need to do something first.”

She is crying again, and Five wipes her tears with his sleeve. “I want Mom…”

“I know you do, and I’ll get you to her, but trust me, Claire, please?”

Nodding, albeit hesitant, Five helps Claire into the wardrobe, his hearing straining over his thudding heart and wheezing chest for approaching footsteps. They are on a limited time frame. The sooner he can do this, the better. 

Claire huddles into the corner of the space, her knees tucked into her chest and looking impossibly small.

“You’re doing really well, ok?” Running a hand over her head, Five gives her a tight hug. “I’m going to be gone for a little bit. While I am, do _not_ open the doors. No matter what you hear, even if it’s people in the room, do not move, do not speak. Do you understand.”

Her little, “Yes…” is faint, but there.

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Pulling away, Five tries to smile. “It’ll be like hide-and-seek. Don’t let anyone find you, alright? I’ll come and get you when everything is safe.”

She scrubs at her eyes, sniffling. “Love you, Uncle Five.”

He melts. “Love you too.”

Closing the door feels like a nail in his sternum.

These bastards are going to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It will be fine." Five says. 
> 
> "Boy, you just jinxed it." Replies the author.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five does his best, it kinda works, and then it kinda doesn't.

The trick is to make them think they have the upper hand.

It is a tactic Five has used many times, even more so now he is physically fourteen. People constantly underestimate the experience he has in combat, including his own siblings. On the one hand, it sucks, because Five is forced to repeatedly insist he can do things by himself. On the other, it is great, because it makes catching people off-guard a whole lot easier.

But first, Five needs a weapon.

After the visit from Hazel and Cha-Cha, it was agreed that they should avoid keeping weaponry out in the open for anyone to grab, locking it away into a closet hidden behind a bookcase in a random room of the house.

This was, in theory, an obvious plan. It allowed Dad’s random medieval torture devices to be tucked out of harm’s way in a space only they knew about, and it made the house safer for Claire, who had a habit of touching anything that caught her eye.

Good for protecting Claire, yes, but helping Five find something to fight back with? Not so much.

Without any idea of where the Commission are, he cannot just go popping into random rooms and start shoving bookcases across the floor. Five would be shot down in an instant, and in his weakened state pushing heavy things would do little to help. He is wheezing enough as it is.

So, Five jumps into the pantry connected to the kitchen instead, a tight, almost closet-like room with barely enough space for one person and a mop that helpfully bangs onto his head as he lands. The shelves wobble, threatening to spill their stored cans, but eventually fall still.

This is the last place the intruders would expect him, giving Five the perfect spot to camp out and listen to see if the kitchen is clear. The pantry also gives Five the chance to regain his breath, harsh coughing rattling his insides as if they were a bag of marbles. His cheeks feel flushed as he wipes away the sweat from his eyes, and he blinks his way through the dizziness.

Jesus, his chest and throat hurt.

He cannot dwell on that now, though.

After a moment of listening, Five cracks open the door and slips out into the empty kitchen, swiping up two of the kitchen knives from their wooden stand far out of Claire’s reach. Tucking them away securely out of sight, Five braces, taking in three big gulps of air before forcing himself through another jump.

He lands at the end of the corridor where Claire is hidden, purposefully tripping himself into a wall and plastering his best shocked expression at the idiots gathered there trying to organise their next move.

Like clockwork, they turn and shoot.

Predictable bastards.

Spinning on his heel, Five barrels down the stairs, bullets snapping the ground behind him and bouncing off the hardwood floor. The noise sings out to their comrades like dogs to a whistle, and Five ducks from room to room, darting in and out of corridors to avoid giving them a straight shot.

His cough protests greatly, clawing at him from the inside as if a beast trying to break free. It hurts in a way that is worse than when he was right in the middle of his sickness, when he had the luxury of lounging in his bed until the bouts passed, but he forces himself to work through it. 

Five dealt with being ill while in an apocalypse, he can deal with this just as well.

He needs to get the Commission across the house, as far away from Claire as he can manage. It is the only way if they are going to stand a chance of getting out of this alive.

Leading his hoard of merry murderers onwards, Five snaps around corners, trying to ignore the way the air scrapes coarse against his battered throat. None of those from outside join them at the sounds of gunfire, which is fucking annoying, but he seems to have corralled most, if not, hopefully, all those that had already broken in.

Vases shatter around him, ornaments ripping in two as bullets cut them down, but Five does not mourn the loss of his father’s eccentric collections. Most of the items are nothing but ugly reminders of Dad’s cold distaste, unloving trinkets that failed in their mission of making the house feel like a loving home. 

He does, however, whisper to himself, “Sorry, Mom…” when he hears her precious paintings go tumbling.

Five shall have to acquire some more to make up for it, later.

Using the edge of the banister to propel himself forward, Five clatters down the stairs three at a time.

“Claire!” He yells, knowing full well that she cannot hear him from all the way over here. His voice cracks painfully. “Where are you?”

The shout brings those from below, running in from the living areas and cutting Five off at the base of the stairs. On the banisters above guns cock, clicking ready to fire, and Five allows himself to pause, eyes snapping in every direction, his coughing unable to stay contained and racking his lungs.

There is a lot, but Five has handled more in the past.

Cracking his neck, he works his jaw tightly, brain buzzing with the math.

Right then.

Drawing out one of the knives, Five snarls, low and dangerous and angry, “You _scared_ my _niece_.”

Then he jumps

The morons have no idea what hit them.

The first goes down with barely a gurgle, the knife easily slipping into their skin and slicing their windpipe, even with the tight leather outfit. Turns out, his family did not slack when it comes to buying good cooking equipment. 

Five tries not to think of Allison.

The next is a man who tries to advance on him as the first tumbles to the ground, but a swift kick to the stomach makes him double, giving Five ample time to shove the knife into the base of his skill. The body lands with a limp thud.

And so, it continues.

Target after target after target, until they are nothing more than a blur of guns, knives, blood. They spray crimson across Five’s face, hot and gross, but he does not pause to wipe it clean as he jumps across the lobby, up the stairs, into the side rooms they try to retreat into. Heated iron trickles into the corners of his mouth, and Five spits it out, his already dry tongue recoiling at the taste.

He cannot allow them to fall back and regroup, because if they do, they could scurry off to some distant corner of the house and call in backup, more enemies with more guns. They need to stay here, in the moment, where they are too preoccupied to do anything that could sabotage Five’s plans.

Something bangs noisily somewhere in the distance, but Five cannot give it mind as he dances from victim to victim, dodging blows and slamming his blade into chests and heads and stomachs. His grip on the knife is slick, and his hand feels as if he is wearing a sleek, tacky glove.

Guns swing wildly as they try to anticipate where he will pop up next. Luck is not on their side, however, because Five gives himself the decadence of not being tied to any particular pattern, zapping about as sporadically as he is able.

Instant kills are the best, they are less fuss and mean he is not in a single spot for longer than needed. Five does not have the time to be fancy, he just needs as many down as he can manage without letting Claire wait for too long. He cannot risk her getting bored or her fear taking control, because she is still a child, and children wander when overpowered by such strong emotions.

Sweat dribbles down his spine, tickling Five’s back and sticking his shirt to his skin, his chest heaving with the need for air. Leaping through space and having his insides reorganised really does nothing for already struggling lungs.

Bullets continue to shoot manically in his general direction, blotting up the walls as if they were in a bar of a bad western film. Hopefully, his siblings are understanding with his lack of grace. It is not like he has much choice in the matter.

With such desperate firing, it was only a matter of time until one of them struck lucky. 

The smack of white-hot pain startles him, jerking his forearm with a burst of red. The colour joins the rest of the gore marring his clothes, which is annoying because these are the ones Vanya brought for him out of her hard earned pay check, not some old academy uniform he could not give a damn about.

Gritting his teeth, Five guts the guy he is currently sharing in close quarters with and ducks into a doorway, panting heavily and resisting with every being of his body not to scrunch his face up with pain. He needs his eyes _open_ , because he is still surrounded by threats.

Staggering back into the blue with a bit less grace than before, Five dips low and swipes one of the dropped guns left abandoned on the floor, jumping again and reappearing by one of the upper banisters, opening fire on all those below. They go down like bubbles popped.

This is successful, until someone loops wire around his throat.

Five gasps, spluttering sharp breathes as he is yanked backwards, his feet slipping on the wet floor and putting his full weight into the wire which cuts a wet line into his skin. The person holds tight, never faltering, and whether it is the strangulation, his weak lungs, or the fact that he is reaching his limit, that make the black spots in the corner of his vision flutter like black butterflies, Five does not know. 

What he _does_ know is that he is still holding the gun.

This person really did not think this through.

You need to _disarm_ your target first, and _then_ you can choke them to death.

Still unable to get his feet under him, Five shoves the barrel somewhere above his head, pulling the trigger and grimacing as heat rains into his hair. The grip on the wire goes slack, and Five wastes no time in jumping to the bottom of the stairs.

Obviously, this was expected, because as he lands with a teeter to the left, Five’s thigh sings with a blistering pain shot from above.

“ _Shit_.”

Diving around the corner into the living room, Five leans his hands on his knees, breathing deeply and quickly. Sweat flows freely, sticking his hair to his forehead, he wipes it, his sleeve coming back damp with moisture. Nausea swims around his stomach, making itself very much at home among his innards.

He still needs to deal with everyone outside, as well.

Things are starting to get out of hand.

Five is losing blood and losing energy, and these make for an unpleasant combination if he allows it to stay that way. The skin of his throat throbs, beating in time with his pulse, and he absently rubs at it as the coughing, deep and filled with gunk, batters his abused insides.

It is at while he tries to suck in oxygen that Five smells the smoke.

At first Five thinks he is imagining it, because he has pushed himself far too much for such a small timeframe and a tired mind likes nothing better than to play cruel tricks on exhausted souls. But then, as footsteps march down the stairs and guns click in preparation for a charge into the room, trickles of black mist start wafting in, thin at first but steadily growing thicker.

The building is on fire.

Not only is it on fire, Five realises with dawning horror, but the Commission has _set it_ on fire. 

_Claire._

They have set the building on fire, and he has _left Claire._

Nausea and limitations and coughing be damned, Five violently rips apart space, leaping through with a newfound adrenaline and leaving the morons in the lobby to do as they please. His niece is alone in a house on fire, like flying hell he was ever going to leave her there.

The corridor he left her in is ablaze as he all but headbutts the wall upon arrival, the heat intense and the flames a brilliant bright orange that sting his eyes and make his head throb. 

Parts of the floor above have collapsed in, creating a deadly maze of debris and weakened flooring spreading out up the entire length of the hallway. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, lacking any kind of draft to blow it in any one direction, and immediately Five is struggling to breathe.

The fire must have been going since he first led them away, giving it plenty of time to grow and claim this side of the house.

It is a brilliant countermove, the analytical part of Five’s brain supplies as he falters forward, shoes hitting random, melted objects, because one way or another, they were going to kill him, and if Five was not going to leave the building to escape those hunting inside, therefore running into the line of fire by those in wait, then they were going to choke him out. Perhaps they were even hoping he would go down with the building, saving the Commission ammunition costs.

“Claire!” Five hacks, voice weak and nearing gone as he clambers over the searing hot timbres that once made up the structure of his home. 

The door to the room she was in is open a touch, and Five has absolutely no idea what to make of that. Something has fallen behind it, a piece of ceiling, he suspects, and Five adamantly ignores the way the wood burns into the skin of his hands as he shoves it open enough for him to get inside.

“Claire!” 

More of the floor above has crumpled inwards, piling onto the unused bed in an impromptu bonfire, flames climbing the wallpaper like snakes. The floor groans in response, noisily protesting the battering. It shudders as he steps forward, and for a second Five pauses in wait for it to give out altogether, but somehow it manages to stay in place.

Mouth completely dry, lungs sucking desperately for anything fresher, Five trips his way across to the wardrobe, flinging open the doors with far more force than necessary.

“Oh, thank fuck-”

“Uncle Five!”

Claire all but flies into him, winding Five as he staggers back under the force of her hug, his own arms returning with equal tightness. She is crying, hard, her shoulders hiccupping in a way that speaks of a fear that has festered into something scarring.

Face twisting, Five scoops her up into his arms, biting his tongue as his injured arm stings because of it. He can feel his own blood soaking into her pyjamas, but he cannot worry about that now.

His voice is barely anything but a lost whisper as he instructs, “Hold onto me, Claire, I’m going to get us out, ok?” Five feels her nod, her arms and legs wrapping around his neck and middle.

The window is not an option, he has no idea if the Commission are still out there and by the way the floor is slowly dipping, he cannot trust it not to give out at any moment. The corridor continues to burn, harsh and brutal, and over the sound of flames Five can hear even more floors succumbing to the heat, banging and crashing on their way down.

Five is going to have to jump.

He is far too weak for this.

“Whatever happens,” He wheezes, shoving his mouth by Claire’s ear so she can hear him, “Do _not_ let go of me, do you understand?”

“Uh-huh.” She sobs, burying into the crook between his neck and shoulder and trembling.

This is going to suck.

What he needs to do is breath slow and deep, but considering he is already suffocating on the smoke and if he coughs much more then he will be hacking blood, Five skips this step in favour of straight up _pulling_.

The world distorts around them, blue merging with orange in a strange kaleidoscope of colours as space protests the tear Five wills into it. Within him, deep down in the centre of his gut, something snaps, like a tendon recoiling, and a pain so sharp that is knocks out all breath slams across Five, his knees threatening to buckle.

“Uncle Five?” Claire blinks up at him, her face a mess of tears and snot and embers dancing in the reflections of her eyes.

Panting, strained and forced and fast, Five squeezes his eyes closed, groaning with effort as he demands them forward, his hands tightening on Claire as he feels the atmosphere shift, ozone staining his tongue and his ears popping.

Then, as if they were nothing, they are spat out the other side.

Five’s feet completely miss their mark and they go sprawling, Five only just spinning them around mid-air so he lands on his back, Claire onto his chest. She shrieks but bounces safely off him onto the floor.

Stars scatter across his vision, distressed fireflies that hum their wings within his eardrums. His skin _melts_ , and Five’s head rolls as he tries to bring a hand up to his face to check that his body is not oozing off his bones. His spine, ringing from the impact, screeches something terrible.

He is not entirely sure he can feel one of his arms from the forearm down, but he may just be imagining things.

Come to think of it, his thigh is not that great either.

“Uncle Five?” Claire crawls up him, shaking his shoulders and making the back of his skull bang against the wooden floor. _“Uncle Five!”_

Wooden floor.

 _Wooden_ floor.

Five is a well-travelled person, and most places do not have wood for sidewalks.

Shit.

Sitting up and almost immediately regretting it, Five chokes on the bile as he turns into his side, gaze zooming in and out and finding one of their rugs imported from somewhere in Asia. Somewhere in the background, the fire still roars, but it is distant, no longer close enough to be of immediate concern.

The footsteps are.

Five is moving before he really understands what is happening, dragging Claire up with him as he topples backwards into the corner of the room, Claire wedged against the walls and Five blocking in front of her, his eyes on the doorway. Mostly, anyway, they keep drifting off to the side for some reason. The heat pulsing against his brain does not help matters.

Somewhere along the line he has lost both his knives, meaning Five will need to fight with his bare hands while trying to keep Claire safe.

It is unlikely she will ever forgive him for this.

“Whatever happens, stay behind me, got it?”

“Unc-”

“Got it?” He snaps, because shadows are falling over the doorway, and he no longer has the time to try and save face.

Five takes her clinging to him as a response and squares his jaw as two masked men slowly edge into the room, their guns trained solely on Five. They smudge in and out of focus, waving like a bad high in a heatwave, but Five does not break his glare, his hands tightening on Claire’s arms as he keeps her locked behind him, shielded by two walls and his body.

“Gentlemen.” Five snarls, feeling his lip curl in disgust. If his voice does not die in the next few minutes, it will soon after. 

He receives no reply, and they take aim, the barrels levelling perfectly with his head.

He is out of options.

Everything Five had was dried up in that last, ultimately pointless, jump, and Five is no idiot, he knows the state that he is in. He would be lucky to make it three steps towards these bastards, let alone run across the room to snap their necks. 

He has the additional worry that if he moves, Claire will be hit instead.

If Five achieves nothing else, at least he can ensure his niece will live to see her Mom. 

All the Commission are after is their target, so, as Five holds his head up high and pushes Claire as low as he can behind her, he can only hope that they will kill him and leave it at that.

 _Please_ let them leave it at that.

The guns click, their fingers latch onto the triggers-

And two knives embed in their skulls.

Downstairs, gunfire shatters into life, and the entire house recoils from it, the walls cracking, the floors vibrating. Yelling echoes through the corridors, high and panicked, and Five can only blink stupidly at the dark blob running into the room.

“In here!” Diego shouts over his shoulder, racing up to Five and latching onto his shoulder, squeezing his arms hard enough to be painful. “Are you ok? Are you injured?”

“Claire!” Allison is screaming, the sounds of her heels banging like a deadly war drum. 

Under his grip, Claire stills, and then yanks herself free from Five, twisting around him with a shriek of, “Mom!”

Five tries to grab her as she passes, rasping, “Claire…” But the world tilts of axis and she easily slips free, sprinting across the room to be scooped up into the arms of her mother, who barely skids to a stop before she is hugging her daughter securely.

“Five! _Five!"_ Diego is snapping his fingers beside his ear, and Five frowns at him, attempting to bat away the hand. “Focus, look at me!”

He would if Diego would stop moving, but his brother does not, so Five does not. He elects instead to watch Allison check Claire over for injuries, the two morphing into one unidentifiable cloud in the doorway of the room. He can hear Claire sobbing.

He cannot hear the gunfire.

“Hey, hey, _hey!"_ The shake from Diego is unnecessary, snapping Five’s neck back and forth in a way that does nothing to help his aching head, “C’mon, bro, _focus_. You need to talk to me. Where are you hurt?”

He has a lot of blood on him, but only some of it is his.

The stuff on his cheek is definitely someone else’s, because Five is pretty sure he would know if he had a face injury. He cannot say the same for the stains on his clothes, however, because some of that will probably belong to him. Also, other people. A mixture. A cocktail.

With that intelligent contemplation, Five’s head lolls back, the floor swooping to greet the ceiling, and everything vanishes into a sweet black nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would some warm milk and honey help?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five will be fine. Probably.

_“Sit him up, sit him up, he can’t breathe!”_

_“Shit! Five? Can you hear me?”_

_“Staunch his leg, he’s bleeding out!”_

 

Five is floating, somewhere deep and dark and empty. Words hum in and out of focus, as if he was listening from the bottom of a vast lake, tangled among the weeds and vines and forced to anchor miles from the surface.

Pain does not hammer into Five here, instead his body is drifting, numb and boneless, caught up in an invisible current.

It is not the pleasant kind of numbness, like the ones from afternoons out in the cold, where your fingertips tingle from scooping snow and your cheeks bloom red for want of warmth. That shade of numbness speaks of running outside, of bonding and interaction, of days Five missed because he had his studies, or his training, or his missions, and he could only watch and listen from his bedroom window as those outside run home early from school, eager to make the most of the weather. 

This numbness is not like that. This is piercing, methodical, practical and blunt in its indifference, as if another drug to be injected into his system, another dosage of prickling pins and needles that rest just below the skin.

In a way, the numbness is painful.

 

_“Fuck, Five, breathe!”_

_“Allison, get Mom! Hold him steady, Klaus!”_

_“His throat, Christ his poor throat…”_

 

Oddly, however, it is also peaceful.

Uncomfortable, but peaceful.

Peaceful is rarely something Five allows himself, these days, if ever. It is hard to, after years of listening to the nagging, sharp voice in the back of his brain reminding him of the supplies he needs, the rations that must be foraged, the wood that must be collected.

In the apocalypse, Five was constantly on the go, barely pausing, never without a task, not allowing himself a moment to collect his thoughts, to listen to the quiet and contemplate. He had been too scared to give himself such treats, because if he stopped, if he put everything else on mute, then that would finally allow his mind to finally to _register_ the situation he was suffering, and if it did that, Five is not sure he could cope.

He had only been thirteen when he jumped. He had been too young, too naive, too close to the throes of childhood, and the brain is a funny organ. It will do the strangest of things just to get through another day.

Sometimes, when he was sitting alone at the campfire, with just the bugs and the wind and Dolores for company, the realisation would sneak up on him, clapping its hands beside his ear and screeching the impossibilities at the top of its lungs.

Dolores always scolded him for drinking too much.

Five refuted that fact constantly.

 

_“The rest of the house is clear, and the fire’s out.”_

_“Fuck, we need oxygen!”_

_“No, wait, Claire, you can’t be in here. Vanya, can you take her out?”_

 

Five’s mind moves like a fog, swallowing all cohesion to leave confusion, bewilderment, muddling around in his head. It is as if he made a wrong turn along a narrow country road, but after doubling back he has yet to work out where he made the error in the first place.

It is disorientating, to say the least.

There is a prickle over his skin, like the ones he used feel early in the mornings in the apocalypse, there just as he roused from sleep to greet him to the day.

Clouds could bring rain, but they could also bring ash. If Five was not careful, if he failed to take the correct precautions and set up cover for his makeshift bed, then he could return from unconsciousness to a blanket of hot dust slowly roasting his dry skin and singeing the edges of his hair. 

Sometimes it would linger too long, in a spot that Five could not quite feel, and he would wake to a deep red blister, a sore that would rub at him under his clothes and threaten infection. This happened most with a patch on his knee, just below the joint, where his skin was numb from an old healed cut that must have done something worse than Five originally anticipated. 

In the summer, when things were sweltering and he shred most of his layers, Five had to pay close attention to the exposed slip of skin, making sure nothing landed there to scold and fester.

The ash would block his airways as well, making him wheeze like a ninety-year-old smoker. For the weeks following the clouds dropping their malnourishing load, Five would hack gunk that was thick and fowl. Face masks helped, but he always found sleeping with rags over his nose and mouth claustrophobic, turning his dreams into nightmares of suffocation and smothering, of the fear that there was someone out there, watching him unseen, ready to strike the moment he let his guard down.

One of the few small mercies Five was ever granted in his long life was that he never suffered from asthma.

If he did, then Five doubts he would have made it for as long as he managed.

 

_“His temperature’s rising, we need to get it down.”_

_“There’s blood in his mouth, but I don’t…Shit, is it someone else’s?”_

_“Luther, dear, can you bring me a bucket of ice from the freezer?”_

 

Dehydration leaves the most bizarre of headaches.

The same can be said for heatstroke, as well.

Five became good at recognising both, and, in a way that left a lump in his throat if he mulled it for too long, he very quickly learnt how to tell the difference. He could do it just by the way the pain would sit in his head, or whether the drilling behind his eyes throbbed or pricked, or the how his thoughts would slide together into a messy pile at the base of his skull.

It cannot be said that Reginald Hargreeves did not prepare them for survival situations. 

Quite the opposite, the man would make them listen to records on the subject while they ate their dinner. After several years, you became used to the way the voice on the gramophone would describe what insects made good eating while you tucked into a roast potato, or discuss how to wrap an infected wound over steamed vegetables, or explain how to gut a carcass as you ate your creamed soup.

Theory, however, was not practice.

Five made many mistakes in that first summer of the apocalypse.

No rains arrived as the season turned from a shaky imitation of spring to what he would later realise were the hottest months he ever experienced there, failing to break through the layers of ash clouds still spraying the Earth. It meant that water was even scarcer than it was normally, and soon the sensation of being parched became mundane. After only a few days Five accepted the fact that his lips would be cracked and sore.

A lack of water causes issues with the human body.

Passing out was never fun. 

He always emerged confused and littered with bug bites, and Dolores would fret for hours over things neither of them could rectify. She would demand Five rest, but resting would not get him water, and without water no amount of naps would ever solve their problems.

Five must have fainted again now, because his brain feels three sizes too big, and there is a dry, ember taste to his mouth.

Dehydration, or heatstroke?

 

_“Easy, buddy, easy. Nice deep breathes, c’mon…”_

_“I don’t like the way he’s wheezing. We need to get out of here.”_

_“We’ll take him to my place, it’ll be secure.”_

 

There were moments, when Five was smothered by bouts of delirium, that he would think he was not alone.

Correction, he was never alone, because he had Dolores, but there were times when he would glance across the ruins of the city, infection workings its course through his veins and sun hazing his vision, that he would freeze, eyes trailing the person calmly walking along.

Every time it happened, he would think back to it after and batter himself for such imaginations, but in the heat of the moment, when everything was intense and painful and the screams of loneliness were the strongest they could get, he could not care less. There was another living, breathing person, _here_ , in the _apocalypse,_ and Five had to reach them.

He never did.

Five never even saw their face. They would constantly move, forever remaining in the distance no matter how much Five scrambled and stumbled after them, a temptation just beyond his fingertips.

For the strangest reason, from what he could tell in those bizarre moments, this person wore a black suit and bowler hat. Not the best apocalypse clothes, but Five’s feverish mind liked to remind him that hats kept the ash off his face, and that it made perfect, logical sense for someone to pick one up and plonk it on their head.

When he told Dolores, she suggested that he needed glasses in his old age.

When words of Vanya’s book began to blur, he wondered if she was right.

 

_“I’ll drive us, you two take Claire and get her sorted.”_

_“Hey, little man, looks like you’re in the back with me.”_

_“Is that him I can hear? Shit…”_

 

The ground is trembling beneath him. Five can feel his shoulders moving.

An earthquake?

There had been a lot of earthquakes in the apocalypse. More in the first seventeen years, and then maybe two or three every other year following that. Not knowing the cause of the apocalypse, Five could only make educated guesses on what he suspected caused the rise. They certainly never had that many in his childhood at the academy, and Five, for as much as he travelled, always stuck within a few weeks walk away from home.

His best theory was that something had struck the Earth, and the impact has been so huge that it physically shifted the tectonic plates, making them unstable.

Of course, with earthquakes come a whole other set of problems.

The structures of most buildings were weak following the end of the world, and they took up a habit of sporadically collapsing at any given time. If the butterfly effect could change the world, then the wind in slightly the wrong direction could determine whether a building would stay standing or not.

This made searching for supplies tricky, and Five was a mathematician, not an architect. Somehow, he managed to go right up to the age of forty-three until his first major incident.

He had gotten cocky, sure that after so long the remains would be sturdy enough to climb. Five had been after more writing equipment, having used up all his reserved pens, pencils, and markers, and the old school building seemed a good place to start.

It was a miracle he had only sprained his ankle and nothing more.

Though, from then on, he always walked with a limp during cold weather.

Another, far more concerning issue with earthquakes, was that they could bring tsunamis. 

Not really something his home city ever suffered from, but anytime Five wandered further out into the country, usually in the space between late summer and early autumn to start restocking supplies for winter, he would sometimes come across piles of debris piled up in places they had not been before. 

It was like watching litter wash up on a beach and forming rippled mounds, only instead of plastic bottles and disposable straws, it was cars, parts of wooden houses, bins, lampposts, trees, and any other random crap that could be scooped along by heavy waves.

Five made sure to camp on high ground, just in case.

 

_“Ok, ok, up we go.”_

_“He’s fast asleep. Watch his head.”_

_“Not now, Al, I’ll explain later.”_

 

The sensation of having arms supporting him is becoming strangely familiar.

Five’s siblings are, for lack of a better term, clingy. They hug him, and ruffle his hair, and lean against him constantly. It is weird, though not unpleasant, and as the weeks following their near apocalyptic disaster draw out Five allows himself to tense his body less, to sink back into the cushions of the couch and tolerate Klaus spreading his legs across his lap.

Mostly, anyway.

He draws the line at bare, unwashed feet.

This tolerance has, whether Five intended it or not, led to several occasions where he has been carried.

The first time, he was flat out drunk. His own fault, though, and as he relayed to his brothers, that is what you do when the world you love goes, “Bye-bye!” Luther had not been impressed in the slightest, especially when Five lost half the contents of his stomach down his leg, but he did not drop him, so that was a bonus.

The second time was also his fault. Five is no stranger to grenades, he has used enough to know just how quick those three seconds can go, yet he still dallied, still took the time to go running by the man at the desk, savouring the moment he destroyed the Commission’s revered briefcases. The shrapnel was his punishment for taking joy in something, one he desperately tried to ignore only to then collapse right in the middle of getting answers. Diego and Allison are strong individuals, but they are no Luther, and they rather awkwardly carried him between them as they took him back to the academy.

The third time was after their escape from the Icarus Theatre. Five had been in a rush, he did not have the proper energy he needed, and failed to do all his calculations correctly. The result was his family being dumped barely a week into the past during Dad’s funeral. This is, unfortunately, all he can remember, because he promptly collapsed for three days straight. At best, he can vaguely recall someone taking him up to his room, but who that was he has no idea. It could not have been Luther, he had Vanya.

The fourth time, it was after he blacked out in the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, it was, once again, his own fault. Jumping so soon after being unconscious for three days was neither clever or practical, and Luther had been unyielding in his demand to take him back to bed. Apparently, Five had scared them all half to death by suddenly appearing beside the coffee machine only to drop like a stone. He tried to insist that this did not mean he needed to be carried, but the swaying of the room was eventually enough for him to give in. Falling flat on his face would barely be a dignified embarrassment.

This is the fifth time.

 

_“There we go, nice and comfortable.”_

_“Keep him upright.”_

_“Nice place you got here, brother-o-mine.”_

_“Have you heard from Allison and Vanya yet?”_

 

Laying in a bed is still a novelty. 

When the apocalypse swept through, it burnt anything that was not brick or concrete, including materials. Only the stuff that was lucky enough to be protected by collapsed walls survived to see the hell on the other side. 

Most of Five’s clothes were torn, or black at the edges, or in need of patching, and everything was smothered in a thin layer of grime, one that only increased as the years went on and they were left rotting with the bodies and the bugs.

Finding things that fit as he grew older became a challenge of foresight, of planning ahead and trying to track his own growth so Five could predict how tall he would become, attempting to find things ahead of when they were needed so he could keep them as nice and whole as possible.

Therefore, mattresses did not exist.

Such luxuries never did.

Five’s bed was less of a ‘bed’ in the traditional sense, and more of a ‘mess of half shredded blankets thrown together to create a rat’s nest’. Dolores said it had a certain charm. Five said it had bedbugs. Either way, it made for uncomfortable sleeping, because all he could collect were scraps and strips, and to be able to rest on them requires a certain level of gymnastics in order to keep your body off the floor. If Five had not been able to sleep with his spine bend halfway to snapped and his head between his knees before he time travelled, then he was an old professional now.

Since getting back to the land of the living, Five has taken a love-hate relationship with his bed.

Which is illogical, considering it is an inanimate object.

Whether he braves sleeping in it or not depends on his mood. If it has been a good day, one where he is distracted, active, running around doing who knows what with his siblings, then he might sleep in the bed. A tired mind makes for deeper sleep, and deeper sleep blocks out the dreams until they are a vague mess of half images and nonsense he will not remember after five minutes of waking.

On the bad days, the days when he has been bored, restless, without a job or task to busy his hands, Five sleeps on the floor. 

He has no desire as to unpick why.

 

_“Uncle Five!”_

_“How is she holding up? I saw blood on her back.”_

_“Be careful, Claire.”_

_“He’s breathing a lot better now, but he needs a lot of rest.”_

 

Returning to consciousness is never pleasant.

Most of the time, it outright sucks.

He experienced it more times than he could count, over the years, for various reasons he cannot fully recall. Sometimes it was infection driving a fever, occasionally it was from hunger and thirst, or, if Five was extra lucky, it could be from debris falling and hitting him on the head, knocking him out and leaving his body useless against whatever element was gracing him that day.

There was always a level of concern when he came back around, poking him annoyingly. 

Five never knew what he could be waking to. There could be any number of pleasant surprises waiting for him, each making Dolores fret, each making her panic as she was left alone in the end of the world. Perhaps it was a broken leg, or a concussion, or a wound that had bled out into the realms of irreversible.

Absently, through the fog, he wonders what it will be this time.

Five can feel the numbness ebbing away, twisting in favour of a maddening heat that sinks beneath his skin, making it itchy, antsy, and he wants nothing more than to take the hard side of a sponge and scrub until everything is red raw.

There is a pressure against his side, a weight. What it is, Five has no idea, but it is not uncomfortable. It is just _there_. 

As his mind slowly starts to come around to something resembling wakefulness, Five grimaces, the harsh dryness of his throat making his chest lurch in a way that forces his lungs to revolt. A cough, thick with goo, rattles echoey around his chest, scratching him from the inside out.

The weight shifts.

“Uncle Five?” A voice, small and precious, whispers beside his ear.

_Claire._

Groaning, his voice box all but shreds left dangling in his throat, Five drags his eyes open slowly, a fuzzy mass of blurs greeting him. Claire wiggles further up the bed, moving from her pressed position against his hip to join him by his unbandaged arm, his back and head propped against the mountain of pillows piled up against the wall.

Blinking out of sync, his eyes barely cracked, Five allows himself a quiet moment for his smudged mind to tune in, trying to orientate himself in the slightly dark room.

The other side of him, half draped across the bed and half on the floor, Klaus snores, his cheek pressed against the mattress of Diego’s bed. Somehow, he has managed to curl himself around the IV stood beside them, dripping fluids into Five’s arm, and he dares not wake his brother in fear of Klaus startling and sending the stand flying. Behind him on a chair, Vanya has her arms crossed and her head tilted to the side in sleep, her feet crossed at the ankles.

Further into the room, Allison, Luther, and Diego have swedged themselves side-by-side onto a tatty old couch that was not there last time Five visited, Luther with his arm draped across the back, Allison with her heels kicked off and leant against Luther, and Diego with his head flung back, mouth open. 

Hushed humming drags his attention and, coughing tiredly, Five glances up to Mom with a half lidded gaze, who smiles at him as she organises what looks like a grocery shop.

“Hello, Five, dear.” She says, softly so she does not wake the others. Walking over, she presses a cool hand onto his forehead, before running her fingers smoothly against his damp hair. “Get some rest if you can. I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

“So will I!” Claire adds, wrapping an arm around his stomach. Five has been dressed in a loose shirt, probably one of Diego’s, and he can feel Claire play with the hem between her fingers.

Mom makes a small chuckling noise at this, and trots back to the groceries, her gentle humming once more filling to room.

Not trusting his voice not to die on him, Five, somewhat blindly, reaches out to pat Claire on the head, missing his mark a touch but still managing to rub his cleaned fingers across her ponytail.

“Mommy said I need to say thank you for looking after me.” She relays to him like a little parrot, staring up with big wide eyes.

Five is, admittedly, struggling to keep his own open. His body is too warm, and his chest has an ach that feels as if it will be there for life, the deep need for rest from pushing his powers beyond his capabilities is making his head buzz with a longing for unconsciousness. The shirt sticks against his back, feeling like an uncomfortable second layer of skin.

Without a voice, he does not have the means to say what he probably should, so, with a slight tilt of the corner of his lips (which would be more if he had no energy for it), Five feebly moves his good arm around to join the hand resting against his middle, squeezing it gently.

His eyes droop closed, and his head nods downwards.

“Uncle Five?”

Five pries them open again, but only just.

Claire worries her lip, and for a moment Five cannot see anything but the girl who stared up at him with fire reflecting in her eyes and fear on her face.

Almost as if she will break him just for asking, Claire whispers, “Will you be ok?”

Five has no words available to him. Trying to make a noise in his current state will only aggravate his cough and lead to a fit that will inevitably wake up his siblings. He does not know how injured he is, and the thought of coughing up anything other than phlegm is not at all appealing, or probably healthy.

Therefore, he leaves the vocal confirmation for now, and gives her hand a tighter, firmer squeeze, and unyielding reassurance that he will be fine. Slowly, with a slight grunt of effort, Five angles his elbow up so she can dip under it, holding her against his body in the crook of his arm, her head resting comfortably on his shoulder. 

Even if he will not be ok after all of this, Claire does not need to know that. He will not be the one to tell her.

Claire twist her hand in his grasp, interlocking their fingers into an unbreakable hold.

Mom’s tune floats through the room.

Klaus snores.

Five drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is...Is this...*Squints* Me writing fluff? What blue moon trickery is this?!
> 
> Thank you for reading this! I hope you all had fun, if 'fun' is how you would describe this!
> 
> [Tumblr](https://ancientstone.tumblr.com/)


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